Why would NBC (GE) — which co-owns Hulu along with Disney (DIS), News Corp (NWS) and Providence Equity Partners — want the video startup to get into the messy agency business?

Because compared with the amount of time people spend online, the amount of money spent on online advertising remains pitifully small. People on the content-owning, content-creating side of the business — people like Jeff Zucker — like to argue the reason for this sad state of affairs is that, with few exceptions, ad agencies don’t yet make good online ads. We tend to agree that poor online creative is at least part of the problem, though we noted a few exceptions in a recent post, “The 10 Best Online Ads Of The Last 12 Months.”